The Heat

Our shipment of boxes arrived on Friday. It's lovely to have my bike back again and my scruffy old rucksack which should have been replaced years ago. But as well as the things I've missed and are really useful there's a lot of stuff I wonder what I was thinking when I chose to send them across the world from among my many stored or discarded belongings.

Did I really need to pack those jumpers? What as I thinking about what my life would be like here when I decided to ship five pairs of high heeled shoes? Waterproof trousers? Well I can answer that one actually. I imagined myself trekking intrepidly through the Burmese or Thai jungle in a tropical downpour feeling smug that I'd thought to bring something so waterproof all the way from the UK.

What I was forgetting of course was the heat. Though forgetting isn't really right. People had told me. I had asked specifically about what people wore and whether I should pack jeans. But nothing can really prepare you mentally when you've lived in London for most of your adult life for the heat here.

Singapore is practically on the equator and it is always really, properly hot. At night, or after an enormous rainstorm it can get slightly cooler but when I say slightly I mean still hotter than the UK ever gets even in one of it's rare heat waves.

As I sit here writing this, completely stationary, with only my fingers moving I am running with sweat. Eating breakfast makes me sweat as though I am going for a run. In fact, weirdly I probably sweat less when I run on the machine here in the air-conditioned gym.

I was in Russia in February earlier this year and it was unimaginably cold. So cold I wore two coats and three pairs of gloves and layers and layers of thermals and only then didn't feel so cold it was constantly uncomfortable. You had to brace yourself every time you left the comfortable warmth and never really relaxed until you were back inside. As you walked past open shop or restaurant doors you could feel the blast of warm air. You could almost see the spectrum of warmth around the doors fighting out against the cold.

Here it's the opposite. As you open doors into air-conditioned spaces you feel the relaxing blast of coolness coming towards you. Walking past shops and restaurants you walk through patches of cool as you pass their air-conditioning. It's Greek holiday hot. It's beach hot. It's smooth and enveloping a silken overcoat of hot.

Just as in Russia I could never be without an awareness of my physical state I'm always aware of the heat, a constant companion. And what it does to your body, sweat running down your back, beading on your lip, filming over your forehead. I am constantly tacky and moist.

However everywhere indoors (expect our flat for financial reasons) is air-conditioned. I always carry a cardigan or some light top because it can be so fiercely cold as to be uncomfortable.

I went to the cinema with some friends of friends when I'd first arrived here. It was a proper expat wife outing. All the women were very slender and well groomed, impeccably dressed carrying smaller expensive looking handbags tucked under one arm. They were all very nice and pleasant company to be with though I didn't get much of a chance to chat as we were watching a film and then I decided not to stay for a drink afterwards as we were moving into this flat the next day and I wanted to finish packing etc. Probably a mistake in retrospect, but there you go.

What made it so expat wife apart from the wives (and yes, they were all 'dependents' ie on a dependent visa which you get if your highly paid expat husband has an employment pass. You will remember I couldn't get one of these because we're not married and the state doesn't approve of that) was that it was 'Gold Class' cinema. This is sort of like business class air travel but cinema.

When you arrive you go and wait for the film to start and a waitress takes your order from the menu which includes things like wedges, dim sung and alcohol as well as popcorn (though I would argue nothing beats popcorn in the cinema). Then when you go into the special cinema itself the waitress will bring you what you've ordered at the time you've specified so in theory you could ask for different nibbles to be brought to you every half an hour all the way through the film. Or if you suddenly fancy a beer half way through you could flag a waiter down and order one.

It has enormous, reclining, business class type seats with small tables for your orders to go on and, best of all, a blanket to snuggle down under and feel cosy under despite the rampant air-conditioning. I found it all hilarious and felt very out of place and rather guilty at the price. I hadn't realised it wasn't just a trip to the cinema, though actually it worked out at about 15GBP, so what I'd pay seeing a film in the west end.

I am posting this to you from Coffee Bean at Bugis next to Raffles Hospital. Coffee Bean is a coffee shop chain like Starbucks with equally poor coffee but excellent wi-fi and kindly staff who don't take exception to my sitting here for very long periods of time while job-hunting etc.

Bugis is a few stops down the green MRT line from where we live in Geylang. It is the Malay or Arab quarter. There are lots of the low old houses which I love and have posted pictures of before. It's a bit like the Shoreditch/Old Street or area in London or as Soho used to be. It used to be a hangout for Transvestites, now long gone and replaced by the funky youngsters of Singapore and monied expats. We were out for a drink there on Saturday night as saw people being id-ed going into a bar where you rented hookah's to smoke. You have to be 18 here to smoke.

I mention this because tomorrow, finally, our internet is being connected. I cannot begin to say what a relief it will be to have free flowing internet again. I realise that having no internet is almost as inconvenient as being without heating or running water. Well, not a problem not to have heating here. It's not just big things like job applications you do on the internet, it's little things like checking the time the cinema starts, trying to find friends on the expat forums or which bus to catch. Anyhow, let today be a day of celebration, because tomorrow between 9am and 11am we will be connected!!!